Anarchism Discussion Thread

[The Liberated Territories]

Yes

I thought you were a consequentialist?

Rule consequentialist

[Renewed Dissonance]

I thought you were a consequentialist?

Rule consequentialist

Describe what this is without it just breaking down into either straight consequentialism or deontology.

[Renewed Dissonance]

Anarchists are actively advocating for the reduction of the division of labor, so thus you wouldn't have 'specialists'. Again, the magic of reading anarchist writings.

Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the savant to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure. I do not content myself with consulting authority in any special branch; I consult several; I compare their opinions, and choose that which seems to me the soundest. But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person. Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.
...
I bow before the authority of special men because it is imposed upon me by my own reason. I am conscious of my inability to grasp, in all its details and positive developments, any very large portion of human knowledge. The greatest intelligence would not be equal to a comprehension of the whole. Thence results, for science as well as for industry, the necessity of the division and association of labor. I receive and I give — such is human life. Each directs and is directed in his turn. Therefore there is no fixed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary authority and subordination

I bolded the important bit. Not all of us are primitivists.

[The Liberated Territories]

Rule consequentialist

Describe what this is without it just breaking down into either straight consequentialism or deontology.

I acknowledge the existence of certain philosophical absolutes (the deontology). Instead I argue that an adherence to these absolutes is beneficial (the consequentialism), but I disagree with the idea that these axioms can be used to show other truths, as in pure deontology.

One example would be the simple statement. "private property is beneficial to society." Consistently applying this moral rule...I believe, leads to greater overall utility, like the utility produced by a free market in which it innovates and creates wealth, while being based morally on this simple fundamental rule.

I distrust pure consequentialism and pure deontology...pure consequentialism loses sight of what is moral for the mere sake of subjectivity, and eventually leads to nihilism, while pure deontology usually turns itself on it's head by failing to realize that the consequences of it's adherence to an ideal can eventually conflict it's own teachings... With this single rule, I also justify my minarchism by it - it adheres to the libertarian notion of the non-aggression principle without utterly destroying itself as any anarchist society would. This is why I prefer rule consequentialism. Rule consequentialism runs by one overarching moral axiom that is internalized by all of it's members to produce the desired results of following that axiom. Because, for example, property is respected by most members of a society, it produces a society that is favorable to property.

[Kubra]

Anarchists are actively advocating for the reduction of the division of labor, so thus you wouldn't have 'specialists'. Again, the magic of reading anarchist writings.

there are so many different flavors of anarchists, I never assume I know what a specific one is advocating. you guys play "no true scottsman" with each other way too much.

reducing the division of labor would be a form of anarcho-primitivism whether you intend it or not.
no thank you I like MRI machines, heart surgeons, and the internet.

the opposition to the division of labour doesn't necessarily apply to intellectual work
Opposition to such was an outgrowth of division of labour in the factory on the lines of subdividing the process of production (leading to what we moderns call taylorist management). Theoretically, it was supposed that the increase in workplace productivity was at the expense of the employees themselves, made dumber by the subdivision of tasks to a particular repetitive motion. Obviously, this problem does not exist for specialist work, where an employee is usually still engaged with a complexed tasks requiring an employee to have a skill particular to it, regardless of division and subdivision. In the economic analyses that form the basis of the opposition to the division of labour (Marx's Capital and Proudhons System of Economic Contradictions), specialist work beyond specific mind-numbing factory tasks are not mentioned as a problem, as far as I can recall. Therefore, it is better this question is rephrased: one ought to oppose the division of labour within the process of production. It's, ah, a bit silly in our context to talk of such a state of affairs, but where industrial development is a little more rudimentary it makes more sense.

Oh yeah a while back we had a little discussion about the Paris Commune and you stopped with it cuz it was off topic. I meant to make a thread on the matter, but I totally forgot, so I think I still owe you that. You cool with restarting that?

[A man is no one]

Anarchists are actively advocating for the reduction of the division of labor, so thus you wouldn't have 'specialists'. Again, the magic of reading anarchist writings.

Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the savant to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure. I do not content myself with consulting authority in any special branch; I consult several; I compare their opinions, and choose that which seems to me the soundest. But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person. Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.
...
I bow before the authority of special men because it is imposed upon me by my own reason. I am conscious of my inability to grasp, in all its details and positive developments, any very large portion of human knowledge. The greatest intelligence would not be equal to a comprehension of the whole. Thence results, for science as well as for industry, the necessity of the division and association of labor. I receive and I give — such is human life. Each directs and is directed in his turn. Therefore there is no fixed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary authority and subordination

I bolded the important bit. Not all of us are primitivists.

On the subject, the really important distinction seems to be in avoiding the invention of a particular class which holds the exclusive right to specialize in something like "the wielding of power" on the assumption that only that class can be trusted with it.

[Prussia-Steinbach]

Do any of the non-anarchists here have any sort of moral/philosophical justification for their beliefs?

Yes

Nozick? Ew.

[Sociobiology]

there are so many different flavors of anarchists, I never assume I know what a specific one is advocating. you guys play "no true scottsman" with each other way too much.

reducing the division of labor would be a form of anarcho-primitivism whether you intend it or not.
no thank you I like MRI machines, heart surgeons, and the internet.

the opposition to the division of labour doesn't necessarily apply to intellectual work
Opposition to such was an outgrowth of division of labour in the factory on the lines of subdividing the process of production (leading to what we moderns call taylorist management). Theoretically, it was supposed that the increase in workplace productivity was at the expense of the employees themselves, made dumber by the subdivision of tasks to a particular repetitive motion. Obviously, this problem does not exist for specialist work, where an employee is usually still engaged with a complexed tasks requiring an employee to have a skill particular to it, regardless of division and subdivision. In the economic analyses that form the basis of the opposition to the division of labour (Marx's Capital and Proudhons System of Economic Contradictions), specialist work beyond specific mind-numbing factory tasks are not mentioned as a problem, as far as I can recall. Therefore, it is better this question is rephrased: one ought to oppose the division of labour within the process of production. It's, ah, a bit silly in our context to talk of such a state of affairs, but where industrial development is a little more rudimentary it makes more sense.

Oh yeah a while back we had a little discussion about the Paris Commune and you stopped with it cuz it was off topic. I meant to make a thread on the matter, but I totally forgot, so I think I still owe you that. You cool with restarting that?

so you don't want a different from of society just labor reform, which is already starting. Why connect it with anarchism?
I'm going to be on NS pretty inconsistently I got press ganged into trying to create a joint program with another university, you can create it just know I'll be replying off on on.

[Trotskylvania]

Do any of the non-anarchists here have any sort of moral/philosophical justification for their beliefs?

I am an acts utilitarian. I desire a stateless society as a final goal, but I don't believe that the communist ideal is a suicide pact, nor do I believe that states can't be promoters of positive utility. Ultimately I have no problem violence, coercion and hierarchy that narrowly serves utilitarian goals.

[Nameless Revolt]

This is sophistry. Does freedom mean submission to oppression and violence to you? If not, then what will we do when someone commits violence against us? We defend ourselves and preserve our freedom. Has the attacker had their freedom curtailed? Only their "freedom" to dominate others, but to dominate is not a freedom, it is authority - we have denied their authority, not their freedom.

It's not sophistry. It's confusion. It had seemed as though by "freedom" you mean "freedom from coercion". Your defense sounds like it can become coercive. If it is coercion you oppose, then it hypocritical to apply it.

A militia shooting or capturing an individual would necessarily violate that individual's freedom (most obviously, freedom to live or freedom of movement respectively) regardless of what the individual has done to provoke the militia.

Okay, confusion, I apologise. It is true that I am not consistent with metaphysical absolutes, I am not for an absolute freedom that means people are "free" to attack and oppress others. I am for the possible, non-metaphysical freedom that must be won and defended by force if such freedom is denied or attacked by force. To call this hypocrisy is to be so caught up in the words of debate as to miss the reality of what is said.

Majoritarian? Defending one's freedom is not based on any quantitative justification.

Defending oneself against an oppressor does not create a hierarchy, it thwarts it. But I see now you are talking of "dissenters" rather than oppressors, despite the fact that I have not advocated suppressing dissent (and just to be clear, violating others freedom and "dissent" are two different things, in the way I understand it).

So it's not even majoritarian. It's just might makes right? You'd prevent dissenters from being successful, even if they were in the majority to protect your freedom?
Sounds like you'd impose law onto them. Laws designed to protect freedom, but laws enforced coercively nonetheless - and the "anarchists" would be the authority enforcing them.

I was initially thinking of killers, thieves, fraudsters, and such types. However, this seems to apply to dissenters who turn thoughts into action also.

Freedom is neither a matter of numbers nor of "might". What we want is equal freedom for all, it is a matter of solidarity.

Dissent: the act of challenging the way things are, can only be met by answering the question posed, whether that results in the dissenter being satisfied with the answer, an agreement upon change, or a parting of ways.

On the matter of what we might call "anti-social actions" (by which I mean murder and other acts that infringe the freedom of others) there is lots of debate, some of which can be read in the document I posted earlier in this thread: http://dysophia.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Dys5-WhatAboutTheRapistsWeb2.pdf

This talk of anarchist authorities enforcing laws, I can only assume, is merely another "confusion".

What we want is the best possible life for everybody, and we think this is best found through freedom, beginning with individual autonomy and fitting into an egalitarian social solidarity which affirms one another's liberty.

"I mean the only kind of liberty that is worthy of the name, liberty that consists in the full development of all the material, intellectual and moral powers that are latent in each person; liberty that recognizes no restrictions other than those determined by the laws of our own individual nature, which cannot properly be regarded as restrictions since these laws are not imposed by any outside legislator beside or above us, but are immanent and inherent, forming the very basis of our material, intellectual and moral being — they do not limit us but are the real and immediate conditions of our freedom."
-Bakunin

On the matter of laws, we run into an indistinctness of language. I understand "law" as the commands decided by a powerful minority for the benefit of that minority, enforced by violent or otherwise coercive means. Needless to say I reject law in this sense.

However I certainly do think that rules have a place in anarchist society. Some anarchists use the term "law" neutrally and differentiate between the law of a State and an anarchist form of law, but I think this muddles things and that we should make clear that we are referring to something entirely different when we talk of rules in anarchy.

There would not be a canon of rules applying everywhere and to everyone, only where they are needed or desired for the healthy functioning of society. Rules would be created, changed, or discarded through direct democracy, beginning with the commune or other voluntary association and connecting through various levels of federation. The details of how a direct democracy would function are still very much debated and experimented with in anarchist circles, and are something that, again, will be determined by those who live it, not at the decree of any anarchist theorist.

How is this federation not simply a state governed by direct democracy? It creates rules, and presumably therefore enforces them.

Federations are no more than an organisational form through which many and varied smaller units of people can organise in complex ways. The structure is not centralised, nor hierarchical, and people participate in their self-governance voluntarily where decisions effect them. It is not separated from the everyday life of people, and there is no specialised group governing. To call this a State can only be a misuse of the word "State".

[Kubra]

the opposition to the division of labour doesn't necessarily apply to intellectual work
Opposition to such was an outgrowth of division of labour in the factory on the lines of subdividing the process of production (leading to what we moderns call taylorist management). Theoretically, it was supposed that the increase in workplace productivity was at the expense of the employees themselves, made dumber by the subdivision of tasks to a particular repetitive motion. Obviously, this problem does not exist for specialist work, where an employee is usually still engaged with a complexed tasks requiring an employee to have a skill particular to it, regardless of division and subdivision. In the economic analyses that form the basis of the opposition to the division of labour (Marx's Capital and Proudhons System of Economic Contradictions), specialist work beyond specific mind-numbing factory tasks are not mentioned as a problem, as far as I can recall. Therefore, it is better this question is rephrased: one ought to oppose the division of labour within the process of production. It's, ah, a bit silly in our context to talk of such a state of affairs, but where industrial development is a little more rudimentary it makes more sense.

Oh yeah a while back we had a little discussion about the Paris Commune and you stopped with it cuz it was off topic. I meant to make a thread on the matter, but I totally forgot, so I think I still owe you that. You cool with restarting that?

so you don't want a different from of society just labor reform, which is already starting. Why connect it with anarchism?
I'm going to be on NS pretty inconsistently I got press ganged into trying to create a joint program with another university, you can create it just know I'll be replying off on on.

Labour reform is one issue among others that in their totality can be grouped under the abolition of capital. There's a lot of thing anarchists want, the matter of labour division is merely one particular issue.
That aside, it's a common theme in left literature since Marx that the seeds of a better or more just society are already present within an existing state of affairs. Therefore, it is merely a matter of repurposing what is already existing. Marx himself may have explicitly written against such a stance in his later writing (particularly on the Paris Commune), but it's still something seen around with neo-kautskyians and their barricade reformism.
Naw that's cool, the time I've been spending here shitposting has also been cutting into time I should be working. I'll have a proper reply on the topic a little later.

[New Werpland]

Do any Anarchists here have some sort of moral justification for their beliefs?

[The Liberated Territories]

Do any Anarchists here have some sort of moral justification for their beliefs?

Nihilism smash!

[New Werpland]

Do any Anarchists here have some sort of moral justification for their beliefs?

Nihilism smash!

I do not understand that. If you don't believe in morals why does Anarchism out of all things become so attractive. And the opposite, is there anything Nihilistic about Anarchism?

[The Free Territory of Rothbardia]

Im sure someone already pointed it out, but just in case they didn't, they left out "free-market" on the poll thing.

First one to say that Free-Market Anarchists are not Anarchists agrees to forever suck Satan’s scaly, flaming, dong in hell.

FOREVER.

[The Free Territory of Rothbardia]

Do any Anarchists here have some sort of moral justification for their beliefs?

Yes:

The State is a predatory implement of oppression. It sustains it self by consuming private/personal property by force, with no true checks of recourse against it. It violates the basic fundamentals of nature and natural rights; it dictates what you can and cant own, how/if you can transfer title of property, what you can and cant put into your own body, and if you can or cant defend your self. If you violate it's divine ordinance, it will likely send men with weapons to force you into a cage, or kill you.

[Cyrisnia]

Is it okay to derail the thread since there's no organized government that makes rules against it?

[The Free Territory of Rothbardia]

Is it okay to derail the thread since there's no organized government that makes rules against it?

Yes.

[Cyrisnia]

Is it okay to derail the thread since there's no organized government that makes rules against it?

Yes.

Lets talk about pickles.

[The Free Territory of Rothbardia]

Yes.

Lets talk about pickles.

Im a fan of home-made dills my self...

[New Werpland]

I often eat pickles because they are a low carbohydrate food, due to my diabetes I cannot safely consume high carb food in-between meals. However these meals are not sporadic because the state intervenes and lowers the price of insulin for me.

[Meryuma]

The concept of governing a large population as a centralized whole is begging the question. The whole point of anarchy is that it emerges from the bottom up.

Never said anything about centralisation.

Then what do you mean by "large population"? The US has a large population because that's how the borders are defined. If there's no state, the question is a bit incoherent without further specification.

Im sure someone already pointed it out, but just in case they didn't, they left out "free-market" on the poll thing.

First one to say that Free-Market Anarchists are not Anarchists agrees to forever suck Satan’s scaly, flaming, dong in hell.

FOREVER.

Market anarchists are obviously anarchists. Capitalists are not market anarchists, though. Rothbard showed occasional anarchist leanings but in general he supported a very authoritarian social structure unabashedly. I can source this if need be.

[The Free Territory of Rothbardia]

Market anarchists are obviously anarchists. Capitalists are not market anarchists, though. Rothbard showed occasional anarchist leanings but in general he supported a very authoritarian social structure unabashedly. I can source this if need be.

Please do.

[New confederate ramenia]

Im sure someone already pointed it out, but just in case they didn't, they left out "free-market" on the poll thing.

First one to say that Free-Market Anarchists are not Anarchists agrees to forever suck Satan’s scaly, flaming, dong in hell.

FOREVER.

Also no national anarchism, municipal anarchism, religious anarchism, or (not really political) epistemological anarchism.

[Kubra]

Im sure someone already pointed it out, but just in case they didn't, they left out "free-market" on the poll thing.

First one to say that Free-Market Anarchists are not Anarchists agrees to forever suck Satan’s scaly, flaming, dong in hell.

FOREVER.

2spooky4me